Meet Design Within Reach's 99-Year-Old Secret Weapon

The modern furniture retailer turned to 99-year-old design legend Jens Risom to create a classic storage product for the 21st century.

By Graham Winfrey

Legendary furniture designer Jens Risom may be 99 years old, but his latest creation for home-décor retailer Design Within Reach is timeless. 

Launched last month as "Ven," the product is a modular storage furniture system designed by Risom in collaboration with 31-year-old Chris Hardy, who previously designed the company's popular Helix table collection.

"You can have [the Ven] in your home with things that are from the 1950s or something brand new and it holds its own," says Design Within Reach CEO John Edelman. "It has a strong nod to the mid-century-modern classics, yet it's completely of the moment."

So how did a designer born in the early 20th century create a product that fits perfectly into the 21st?

Adaptation.

It's a word any entrepreneur worth her salt should know well.

To stay relevant in the eyes of your customers, you'll often need to rethink your offerings--sometimes making difficult decisions that you don't like in the process.

For Risom, designing for a brand-new generation, while perhaps not difficult, did pose challenges. 

One of the key features of the Ven is how the three-foot-wide cabinet can be stacked and combined to build larger storage systems, and how consumers can mix and match open cabinets, drawers, sliding-door cabinets, and dressers.

Integrating customizability into the product is a signature feature of Risom's work, dating back to when he designed made-to-order furniture for Jens Risom Design, the business he launched in 1946 after working for furniture company Knoll.

One of Risom's most well-known products was a sofa and an executive chair used by President Lyndon Johnson in the White House's Oval Office.

"Risom would build furniture at his factory that he owned and ship it to you--so I knew [customization] was one thing that would [be] really important," says Hardy.

Beyond being customizable, however, the new product had to incorporate more modular design trends to appeal to customers' changing needs. (Thank you, Ikea.) "The idea is very basic, [with] fundamental styles of storage, but when you can start building them and creating larger credenzas or wardrobes, it really becomes tailored to what the customer wants," he adds.

To help prepare himself for a collaboration with a design legend, Hardy researched Risom's entire body of work, poring over decades' worth of old catalogs and brochures.

"I was just trying to understand who he was, what his design philosophy was, and what his aesthetic was," Hardy says. 

While Design Within Reach declined to share early sales figures for the product, Edelman says demand has been strong ever since Ven first hit the market. "These things take six months or a year to build up [momentum], but it's already selling well."

Design Within Reach sells the open cabinet version of the Ven for $1,985, with the most expensive option being the two-drawer dresser, at $2,985. 

The Ven also includes self-closing drawers--a popular furniture design element that prevents drawers from slamming shut. But Hardy says the product's best feature is its modularity.  

"Customers can really tailor their configuration to their lifestyle needs," he says. "It makes it a little more personal and more appropriate for each individual."

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